Semester 1 Examination 2008

Semester 1 Examination 2008

Question / Answer Paper

EXAMINATION BOOKLET

YEAR 12 INFORMATION SYSTEMS

TIME ALLOWED FOR THIS PAPER

Reading time before commencing work: Ten minutes

Working time for paper: Three hours

MATERIAL REQUIRED/RECOMMENDED FOR THIS PAPER

TO BE PROVIDED BY THE SUPERVISOR

This Examination Booklet

TO BE PROVIDED BY THE CANDIDATE

Standard Items: Pens, pencils, eraser or correction fluid, ruler, non graphics calculator

Special Items: Non graphic calculators permitted

IMPORTANT NOTE TO CANDIDATES

No other items may be taken into the examination room.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not have any unauthorised notes or other items of a non-personal nature in the examination room. If you have any unauthorised material with you, hand it to the supervisor BEFORE reading any further.

PART A Multiple Choice Items (15 Marks)

Attempt all questions in this part. Each question is worth 1 mark. Each question has only one correct response. For each question select the response that is correct. Signify your answer by circling the label (a, b, c or d) of the correct response. If you change your answer, completely erase your original answer. Questions where two or more responses are selected will score no marks.

1.  Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A.  A primary key can be null

B.  A relation joins two tables

C.  Normalisation minimised data redundancy

D.  Network databases are used extensively in businesses.

2.  A teacher wants to send an information letter to all the students in Year 11 who take Robotics as an elective. The code within the student record database for Robotics is R335. Which selection rule will enable the teacher to select these students from the student record database?

(a) (STU_SUBJECT = R335) OR (STU_YEAR = 11)

(b) (STU_SUBJECT = R335) AND (STU_YEAR = 11)

(c) (STU_SUBJECT = “R335”) OR (STU_YEAR = 11)

(d) (STU_SUBJECT = “R335”) AND (STU_YEAR = 11)

3.  Which of the following is an example of prototyping?

A.  SDLC

B.  Creation of the total system by a modular approach

C.  Using wizards to generate a form

D.  Creating mock-ups and refining them after feedback.

4.  An example of a distributed information system is:

A.  A CD-ROM of information

B.  A bank Auto Teller Machine (ATM)

C.  A phone book

D.  The Dewey Decimal library system

5.  What is the name of the process that rearranges your discontiguous files and free space on your computer so that your files are stored in contiguous units and free space is consolidated in one contiguous block?

A.  Degaussing

B.  Patching

C.  Defragmenting

D.  Parsing

6.  Looking at the following entity relationship diagram, which statement is correct?

A.  Each doctor can see many patients

B.  Each assistant is associated to many doctors

C.  Each ward has many doctors

D.  Each patient can be treated in many wards

7.  Which of the following statements is/are an example(s) of preventive maintenance?

A.  Formatting a hard drive

B.  Reinstalling an operating system

C.  Installing anti virus software

D.  All of the above

8.  Which statement below best describes an “open information system”?

A.  An “open information system” allows transfer of data across the system boundary

B.  An “open information system” only allows the transfer of data into the system

C.  An “open information system” only allows the transfer of data out of the system

D.  All systems are “open information systems”

9.  If you were looking at the “Systems Development Life Cycle” in general, what would be the initial order of events?

A.  Problem definition, business plan, conceptual design, detailed design

B.  Problem definition, conceptual design, business plan, detailed design

C.  Business plan, conceptual design, problem definition, detailed design

D.  Business plan, problem definition, detailed design, conceptual design

10.  How does data differ from information?

A.  Information is collected by humans, data is collected by electronic methods

B.  They have the same meaning, but are used as variations in expression

C.  Data is raw recordings which may not be meaningful until given an interpretation, Information has been processed in some way to be meaningful

D.  Data is a strictly defined by an agreed international standard, whereas information is an imprecise popular word.

11.  The systems development tool that is used to indicate the proposed start and ending times and some of the task dependencies for various sections of a development project is known as?

A.  A decision table

B.  An organisational chart

C.  A Gantt chart

D.  The critical schedules document

12.  Study the following relation:

Which one of the following is a tuple from this relation?

A.  1,19/02/1946,Rocking horse,,1879,AD,Furniture,Yes,$20.00

B.  AcqNo,AcqDate,Descritpion,Circa,OrgDate,AD/BC,Collection,Loanable,Insurance

C.  Furniture,Furniture,Porcelain,Aboriginal,Glassware

D.  4,Brass engraved Aboriginal breastplate,1800,Yes,$10.00

13.  Which one of the following is not an example of user documentation?

A.  Data dictionary

B.  Online tutorial

C.  Quick reference card

D.  Hardware training manual

14.  A computer ROM BIOS used for booting your computer is:

A.  Software

B.  Software embedded in hardware

C.  Firmware embedded in software

D.  ROMware

15.  Part of a Management Information System (MIS) developed for a manufacturing company provides an enquiry screen to display sales volumes over the previous 8 quarters. It does this by extracting individual order details from the company database, then displaying the total quarterly orders in a bar chart.

Which of the following sentences best describes what is happening here?

A.  Data is being converted into information.

B.  Information is being converted into data

C.  This illustrates a “bottom up” design.

D.  This illustrates a “top down” design.

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END OF PART A

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PART B Short Answers (25 Marks)

Answer all questions. Write your response in the spaces provided in this Question/Answer booklet.

16.  Your computer is now two years old and although you cannot afford to replace it, you would like to update it. A computer salesperson has told you that upgrading the processor of your computer with a faster processor will substantially increase the speed of the computer overall. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer.

(2 marks)

_ Describe the following tasks as they apply to project management: (2 marks)

a.  Planning involves setting up the project by creating a management plan of how the project will be completed. Invovles what needs to be completed, how, who and when. Will involve a list of tasks, activities and deliverables, allocation of responsibilities, dates, resources, etc.

b.  Defining the problem First step to understanding the problem. May involve redefining the problem. Indentify the problem or need, analyse it and find facts that affect the solution

17.  You can store data on a hard disk or on a USB drive, but internally they are quite different. Explain the difference between a hard disk drive and a USB drive in terms of how they store data. (1 mark)

18.  Consider the following table:

ORDER: (OrderID, CustID, CustName, CustAdddress, OrderDate, Item1ID, Item1Qty, Item1Price, Item2ID, Item2Qty, Item2Price, Item3ID, Item3Qty, Item3Price)

A sample record from this table is shown below:

OrderID: 12345

CustID: 2356

CustName: Mary Smith

CustAddress: 37 The Lane Bunbury 6230

OrderDate: 17th June 2007

Item1ID: 3477

Item1Qty: 2

Item1Price: $23.67

Item2ID: 5598

Item2Qty: 5

Item2Price: $237.99

Item3ID: 5409

Item3Qty: 1

Item3Price: $57.99

(a) Use examples of fields from the table to explain why this table is NOT in First Normal Form (1NF). (1 mark)

(c) Use examples of fields from the table to explain why this table is NOT in Third Normal Form (3NF). It is not sufficient to say that the table is not in NF or 2NF and hence not in 3NF. (2 marks)

Encryption is often used in Information Systems (3 marks)

a.  What is encryption?

Encryption converting plain text into cipher text (text that cannot be read) using some

process or algorithm 1 mark (Note: Other possible terms: encoding, scrambling)

b.  Why would you use encryption?

Why use: to protect privacy or integrity of a message

c.  Describe one advantage and one disadvantage of using encryption.

Disadvantages: computation (time, resources etc.), specialist software/hardware, loss of

transparency of data ½ mark for one

Advantages – privacy, integrity, security ½ mark for one.

Computer maintenance is important. Answer the following questions.

A. Explain the term “backup” with reference to the files of a computer information system.

To copy files to a second medium (a disk or tape) as a precaution in case the first medium fails. One of the cardinal rules in using computers is. Back up your files regularly. Even the most reliable computer is apt to break down eventually. Many professionals recommend that you make two, or even three, backups of all your files. To be especially safe, you should keep one backup in a different location from the others. Making a spare copy of files in case the original is damaged or destroyed. The copying of these files is normally organised in a programmed way of daily weekly and monthly cycle, and may be done in full or incremental backup. Backup files are frequently stored in a different physical location in case of fire, theft or other such problems. Some organisations actually bank backup data.

(1 mark)

B. Give one example of wise “preventative maintenance” of files in a computer system.

Preventive maintenance (PM) has the following meanings: # The care and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition by providing for systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects. # Maintenance, including tests, measurements, adjustments, and parts replacement, performed specifically to prevent faults from occurring. Removing temporary files such as those resulting from internet browsing or left in temporary directories after installation of software. Keeping virus definition files up to date. Cleaning up registry files or desktop files after removal. Defragmentation of file storage on hard disks, especially before installing new software.(1 mark)

19.  Study the table given below:

STOCK-SUPPLIER

A. Now draw an appropriate entity relationship diagram. Ensure you include the attributes. (2 marks)

B. State the cardinality of the relationship. (1 mark)

Many Suppliers can order many stock and many stock can be ordered by many suppliers. M:N

23. “Top down” and “Bottom Up” are approaches used in systems development; describe how they are used and the differences between them? (2 Marks)

25. Buses within a Computer are essential. Name 2 different types of buses and describe their specific roles. (2 Marks)

__ Address bus - A collection of wires connecting the CPU with main memory that is used to identify particular locations (addresses) in main memory. The width of the address bus (that is, the number of wires) determines how many unique memory locations can be addressed. An address bus is (part of) a computer bus, used by CPUs or DMA-capable units for communicating the physical addresses of computer memory elements/locations that the requesting unit wants to access (read/write).

Control bus - Carries control signals to make sure that the data traffic flows smoothly.

Data bus - The lines on the system bus that CPU uses to send and receive data.

System bus - consists of electrical pathways, which move information between basic components of the motherboard, including between RAM and the CPU

26. Distinguish between the role of the ALU and the Control Unit? (2 Marks)

An arithmetic[-]logic unit (ALU) is a core component of all computer CPUs. ALUs are capable of calculating the results of a wide variety of basic arithmetical computations, most commonly the following ones:*integer arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication)*bitwise logic operations (AND, NOT, OR, XOR)*bit-shifting operations (shifting or rotating a word by a specified number of bits to the left or right, with or without sign extension)

A control unit is the part of a CPU or other device that directs its operation. The outputs of the unit control the activity of the rest of the device. A control unit can be thought of as a finite state machine.

27.  Prototyping is another “systems development” method of developing systems.

A. Describe “prototyping” in a development environment (1 Mark)

B. If “Prototyping” is used in conjunction with SDLC (systems development life cycle) which stage above would it be used in and why? (1 Mark)